American Prayer

This is absolutely glorious.
Barack the Vote, everybody.

World Economic Crisis Slightly Ruffles the Hair of the Swiss

There are two kinds of economists: the ones with a political or theoretical axe to grind, who will interpret absolutely all data as either supporting their pet theory, or false; and the ones who actually know what they're talking about. Needless to say, GW Bush went on a hiring binge to fill his administration with as many of the former group as possible.

I think most members of the latter group live in Switzerland, and/or are Paul Krugman.

I already had this belief that Switzerland knows more than anyone else about making and keeping money. You have to hand it to a country that's been free, rich and at peace for 500 years: they know what they're doing. (They even handled Nazi Germany pretty well, so I hear, saving about 50,000 Jews in the process.) So I went online to see how Switzerland's weathering the economic hurricane that has ripped the roof off the rest of the world. Is it bankrupt, like Iceland, and begging for loans from the Russian mafia (oops, I mean "Russia," wink wink--is "mafiosogarchy" a word yet)? Is its economy imploding, like ours, with jobs and money vanishing into thin air? Let's hear it straight from the Swiss:

The luxury car salesman in Geneva: "My Jaguar sales are down since August."
The financial-sector recruiter: "Most banks have frozen new hiring in about 80% of their departments. They're still hiring managers to handle client demands, and they're still warring with each other to attract the best talent. But generally speaking, they're trying to limit operation costs for the coming year." (Note the phrase "stopped hiring," as opposed to "had layoffs." And note that the other 20% of bank departments are still hiring. Banks are still hiring! They're going under everywhere else.)
Some banks: "[The private banks] Pictet and Mirabaud say that they are growing, though they no longer have the same serenity as they did at the beginning of the year."

Yes! The overall serenity of banks has decreased somewhat! I guess in Swiss terms, that's an economic crisis right there.

My big question is this: since the Swiss obviously have this down to an art form, why have America and Europe--but especially America--been wasting so much time spinning pretty new politico-economic theories, and repeatedly making laws based on those theories despite the fact that every single time they do it leads to a recession? (Reagan, Bush, I'm talking to you.) Why don't we simply observe what works, and then do it? I guess because Bush and all his trickle-down economists cling to their pet theories like Gollum clings to the One Ring. "Mussst have it, my preciousss!"

Haven't These People Seen Zoolander?!

The joke in Zoolander was that Derek Zoolander, the male model played by Ben Stiller, believed himself to have a profoundly expressive and beautiful face. He spent hours in front of the mirror practicing "different" expressions and making up names for them, but in fact all his expressions were the same.

Apparently the folks at the New York Times fashion section haven't seen Zoolander (or maybe they just didn't get the joke?). Every week there's a new slide show on their website inviting readers to watch a model be "transformed." For example...

Watch Sigrid be "transformed" nine times!
http://themoment.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/model-morphosis-sigrid/
Features include:
* Seven photos of Sigrid wearing different outfits, but the exact same utterly meaningless facial expression. I call this expression "Blade."
* One photo (#4) of her doing a modified version, "Victorian Blade."
* One photo (#8) of her with her head in the same position, but this time she's smiling. I call this expression "Cherish," because Madonna first brought the expression to a wide audience 12 seconds into her 1989 video "Cherish."

And here's another slideshow, featuring the constantly changing face of Agnete Hegelund. I call her expression "Autobahn."
http://themoment.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/model-morphosis-agnete-hegelund/

And another: the many moods of model Anna J. This slideshow includes ten photos of her current expression, "Deneuve," and one of the expression used earlier in her career, a smile called "Britney":
http://themoment.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/30/model-morphosis-anna-j/

If anyone's still wondering why models rarely make it as actors... !